Russia's Gazprom is taking more than 38 million cubic meters of gas/day from its European underground facilities to ensure stable gas supplies to its customers during the cold spell, Gazprom Export said Friday in a statement, citing Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev.
"During this peak demand period, Gazprom has been extracting gas from its UGS located in Europe to the maximum possible level -- more than 38 million cubic meters a day," Medvedev was quoted as saying.
Russian gas supplies to the EU were reduced last Friday with at least eight EU countries affected as cold weather hit Europe.
At the time, Gazprom said it was exporting gas to Europe at maximum capacity, and said it was not contractually obliged to send additional volumes to meet the increased requests.
Gazprom said it was interested in further growing the capacities of its European underground storage facilities.
"Gazprom has an interest in having large UGS facilities in Europe at its disposal for the prime reason of meeting obligations under export supply contracts...We would like to believe that European regulatory bodies would take this rationale into account," it said.
The company expects to almost double the capacity of its underground storage facilities to around 5 Bcm by 2015, Medvedev was quoted as saying, reiterating Gazprom's earlier plans.
Currently, Gazprom runs four underground storages in Europe: the Haidach facility in Austria, the Banatski Dvor facility in Serbia.
Banatski Dvor, launched this year, has a capacity of 450 million cu m. It has has already reached its designed output capacity of more than 4 million cu m/day, Gazprom's statement said.
Gazprom also holds 50% of Germany's Wingas, which owns the Rehden facility, Europe's largest gas storage with a capacity of over 4 billion cu m.
In May, Gazprom completed expansion of Haidach's capacity to 2.6 Bcm from 1.2 Bcm.
In September, Gazprom jointly with Germany's Verbundnetz AG, or VNG, started construction of a 600 million cu Katarina gas storage facility in Germany. It is expected to be completed in 2024.
